The winter solstice, or Yule, is the year's shortest day and longest night. Yule is a sabbat on the Wheel of the Year that marks midwinter, and even though it’s the darkest time of the whole year, it represents a time of death and rebirth. Here is a card spread to help identify, grieve, and release what’s ready to be shed and reborn within yourself this season.

It can be too easy to forget that you, all of us, are supported in both seen and unseen realms. It’s so important in times such as these that we remember and have space to feel the support of our guides, allies, and ancestors who deeply desire to help support and guide you in this life. The undercurrent beckoning us to consume or produce constantly, all in the name of making money, can easily sever us from this deep truth.

In this short share, I offer you the story of how I was guided to connect with three grandmothers, the wisdom they provided, and insight from them via a chat with the tarot.

Today, I’m bringing you a conversation with my dear friend, Ashley Leavy, that feels like a needed love offering at this tender time. In this episode, we’re talking about magical allies for grief, primarily crystals and stones, but plants and trees also weave into the conversation. We discuss a few crystals that can be wonderful allies in working with grief, navigating ethics while working with crystals, and leaning on your intuition when deciding how to connect with different energies for support while grieving.

Every plant and tree that cycles through the seasons knows that at some point, it is time to return inward and be held by the Earth. They don’t fight it and continue pouring their energy into their fruit until they know it’s time to turn inward or die. They surrender fully to the season and even continue expressing themselves and growing. The land has been whispering that there’s much more to surrender and it doesn’t always mean giving up. Surrendering can be joyful, even pleasurable.

Hello, dear ones. I’m coming to you with the first guest podcast in a new series all about grief and grief tending and what it can look and feel like when we apply a spiritual lens.

This four-part series will explore grief tending through pleasure, astrology, plant magic, and working with crystals.

The golden glow of summer is present but slowly fading. Fruits are ripe as the land continues to give, and the Earth’s love for us can be seen, felt, and tasted. There’s much to celebrate and much to grieve. Burning land, displacement, and smoke-tinged air offer potent reminders of where we are. It feels like too much more often than not. Then I remember these cycles, even human-created, will continue with or without me and that soft spaces are needed. The Nurturing Mother of late summer holds out her bountiful arms to nurture our grief. Soft spaces exist to grieve and be held but sometimes need to be cultivated from within.

The Magnolia tree is the oldest flowering tree that we humans know of. Fossils of Magnolia have been found dating back 58 million years. Some botanists think the Magnolia flower, or something resembling it, may have been the first flower on Earth from which all other flowers descended. Magnolia lived amongst the dinosaurs and continues to flourish today in various species. Magnolia is so old that these ancient examples pollinated with the help of beetles rather than bees because bees did not exist. It has witnessed many of Earth’s phases, expansive, destructive, regenerative, and everything in between.

Every rite of passage and rebirth you experience, whether on a spiritual, emotional, physical, personal, or collective level, includes opportunities to grieve. Yet, talk of grief is often reserved for death and dying alone. While in truth, grief relates to any deep sorrow, and sorrow accompanies many of the rites of passage we walk through. Some of the rites of passage, rebirths, and deaths that come to mind that so often lack our grief are the onset of menstruation, puberty, childbirth, monetary changes, loss of friendships, moving, changes in important relationships, career or work changes, deaths, and collective changes like climate change and the pandemic, just to name a few.